Volume 39:8

1. Announcements

It’s beginning to look a lot like the end of Fall Semester. I know everyone is swamped right now, but in a week or two, I hope you are blissfully sipping some egg nog next to a holiday fire and enjoying a blissfully serene day, whatever that looks like to you, but without any grading. This TN comes loaded with news and all best wishes for a wonderful break and holiday season, and throughout the coming year. (Or, as I used to tell myself when I was in graduate school, this will all be over soon..)

So let this be the very first announcement for Spring 2013, that Kathy Leslie will again be teaching yoga on Wednesdays, from 12:30 to 1:30, in JR 319. All are welcome and all feel better once they have taken the plunge (or the lunge) and joined the other department yogis. Like my yoga teacher says, the hardest thing about yoga is getting to class. Hope to see you there.

College can be stressful enough, andno student facing financial difficulties should go hungry. The Health Education Student Organization, is striving to ease that burden by sponsoring the first “No Student Hungry During Finals” Food Pantry to be held next Monday, December 10th, from 9:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m., in the Balboa Room, in the Northridge Center.If you know any CSUN student who might be struggling financially, please let them know about this free event. Confidential registration is requested (for planning purposes only), but not required, and you can do so by emailing first name only to StudentPantry@yahoo.co. And for students fortunate enough not to be facing financial hardship but wanting to help, let them know that they can email the food pantry too. Donations are greatly appreciated. Checks should be made out to HESO and can be dropped off in the Health Sciences office in Jacaranda (2nd floor), to be put into Dr. Burke’s mailbox.

Anne Kellenberger is looking for SI recommendations (again). If you have any promising promising upper-division or grad students interested in working in the Supplemental Instruction program, please let her know at anne.kellenberger@csun.edu . They need to be good writers and role models, responsible, mature students, who are articulate and poised enough to lead a class of twenty first-time freshmen for two hours per week. They do not need to be majors, but they do need to be able to talk intelligently about writing. SI Leaders work 9 hours per week and earn about $11.00 per hour. Please do let her and/or your good students know–this is a great opportunity for them, and Anne most assuredly needs our help. This fall, for example, she had 105 SI leaders working in English and, with appropriate cultural credentials, in other departments, and she is already looking for next fall!

On Friday, December 7th at 7:00 p.m., the Northridge Playwrights’ Workshop will present readings of new student plays, monologues, and stand-up comedy. The event, which is free and open to the general public, will take place in the Little Theatre (Norhoff Hall 121), and feature the following students: Marysol Atkinson, Joseph Cardena, Darlene Camberos, Luis Cervantes, David Feldman, Jordan Guevarra, Ryan Lewin, Lucero Luna, Melanie Miulli, Nicole Moncree, Vanesa Morales, Olivia Patrick, Daniel Pelaez, Darius Popenhagen, Edward Trinidad, Jennifer Vela, and Devin Wood.

Campus Quality Fee proposals are now being accepted for the 2013-14 year for initiatives that support advancements in student use of technology or provide student support services. The proposal document is accessible from the Campus Quality Fee (CQF) website located at: http://www.csun.edu/studentaffairs/campusqualityfee/ and must be submitted by midnight on December 17, 2012.

Here’s the latest from HR: 1. Please don’t forget to participate in President Harrison’s Make CSUN Shine Brighter new program by logging on to the program website at http://www.csun.edu/MakeCSUNShineBrighter/ and sharing your ideas. 2) If you do not currently participate in Direct Deposit and wish to obtain your December Pay Warrant on Monday, December 31st, please read the Payroll Administration item on December 31st Pay Day and Pay Warrant Pick Up at http://www-admn.csun.edu/ohrs/payroll/, where you will learn that in order to be able to pick up your pay on December 31, you will need to fill out an intent to do so form by December 21, and won’t be able to cash it, anyway, until January 1. And, 3. As part of the State’s Pension Reform Act of 2013, the Additional Service Credit Purchase Option known as “Air-Time,” will be eliminated for CalPERS members effective January 1, 2013.

And now, looking even farther into the future – far, far into the future – please save the date, Friday, May 17, 2013, for President Harrison’s investiture. The event is anticipated to begin at 2:00 p.m. in the VPAC, with a reception following. More details will be forthcoming as planning proceeds, but mark your calendars now.

2. Reminders

Not as if this needs any reminding, but here we are at the end of the term (and how, really, is that possible?), which means, among other less happy things, that the Department holiday party will also soon be upon us on December 14, from 12:30 p.m. to 3:00 p.m., with awards being presented at about 1:30. Don’t miss this opportunity to take a break from grading and celebrate the season, each other, our students, and the successful conclusion of the fall semester in what is always a gala affair! And don’t forget the sign-up sheet now available, bearing in mind that the Department will be providing sandwich fixings and drinks.

But first, regarding finals, don’t forget that final exams may not be rescheduled without written approval from the Department Chair and College Dean. Full details can be found in the Provost’s memo, at http://www.csun.edu/facultyaffairs/memo/.

And after finals, please don’t forget that grades (yes, you have to grade them) will be due NO LATER THAN 4:30 p.m. Friday December 21st. This deadline ensures that the staff has plenty of time to do all the things that they need to do to finalize the semester and get all our grades in. Please post yours as soon as possible, and then enjoy your well deserved break. When everyone has done so, everyone can do the same. If you have any questions or concerns about this, contact Jackie.

Spring 2013 text book orders are still overdue. If yours are still outstanding, they’re another two weeks later than they were at last posting. Please get yours in as soon as possible to ensure you’ll have books at the start of next term by emailing Ken at 0150txt3@fheg.follett.com and CC’ing Frank on the email. Ken can also be contacted by phone at 818-677-2932.

And one last time, registration for the 2013 Faculty Retreat, “CSUN Shines: Illuminating Pathways to Success” is now open. If you have already registered to attend, “thank you!” Otherwise, please click on this link to register: http://www.csun.edu/senate/retreat.html. The Retreat will once again be held on the CSUN campus on Monday, January 14 and Tuesday, January 15, 2013 at the University Student Union Northridge Center.

3. Opportunities

The 2013-14 Judge Julian Beck Learning-Centered Instructional Project grants RFP is now available. The Beck grants provide funds of up to $6000 for projects that promote improvements in student learning. This year’s deadline is March 15, 2013. For more information, please see the Faculty Development website at http://blogs.csun.edu/faculty-development/rfp-for-2013-14-beck-grants/.

And here’s one more from Faculty Development: In May 2012, five CSUN faculty formed a Faculty Learning Community (FLC) focused on research productivity with a CSUN teaching load. (Some of us will have been here long enough to be thinking, hmm, haven’t we been here before?) The Research Productivity Resource Guide they developed (still a working document and open for input) can be found at http://blogs.csun.edu/faculty-development/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/Research-Productivity.pdf.

Here’s an interesting notice we’ve received from Peter LaBerge, a seventeen-year-old senior in high school from Stamford, Connecticut, who is the Founder/Editor-in-Chief of The Adroit Journal (www.adroit.co.nr) and who has asked us to consider encouraging our students to submit work to him. The Adroit Journal is a print literary publication LaBerge created in November 2010 to offer young writers from around the world the unique opportunity not only to submit work for publication alongside numerous established writers, but also to participate in this evaluation process themselves, as part of the journal’s staff of readers and editors. As of right now, the journal has received almost 3,000 submissions of writing and art, and attains a staff of 53 high school and college students from half of the United States, and six other countries. Five issues of the journal have been published to date, including a special issue on Cuban poets from around the world, and in 2013, it will be offering prizes in fiction and poetry. For more information, please check out their website. This sounds like a good opportunity for our students.

Students at Loyola Marymount University are seeking submissions in literary nonfiction, the essay, memoir and commentary for Got Truth? The Truth About the Fact, an International Journal of Literary Nonfiction. 1000-5000 words. Narrative poetry and black & white art and photography. The submission deadline is December 31, 2012, and submissions can be sent via email to editor@thetruthaboutthefact.com. Published by Loyola Marymount University. For more information, please see thetruthaboutthefact.com.

On July 12, 2012, the Barbara Pym Centenary International Conference will celebrate the achievement of Barbara Pym in the year that marks the 100th anniversary of her birth. Abstracts should be 250 words and accompanied by brief biographical details.Please send to Dr Nick Turner, University of Central Lancashire (NTurner4@uclan.ac.uk) by Feb 28th 2013.To register your interest and to receive further details please email Emma Woodward, Conference Officer barbarapymconference@uclan.ac.uk, or call 01772 894500.

4. Achievements

Kent Baxter edited, and contributed to, a new collection of essays, published by Salem Press. Reaching from Homer to Sherman Alexie, Critical Insights: Coming of Age features two overview essays and thirteen detailed case studies of coming-of-age stories, explicated by some of the most knowledgeable and insightful scholars in their respective fields. Included in the collection are essays by CSUN faculty Beth Wightman (“’Not Now …. Not Yet’: Developmental Difficulties in Jane Eyre and Wide Sargasso Sea”) and Tomo Hattori (“Song for a Murdered Cousin: Violence in The Woman Warrior”).

On November 16th, Irene Clark presented a paper at the National Council of Teachers of English conference in Las Vegas. The title of her paper was “Students’ Awareness of Genre and Rhetoric” and it was part of a panel titled “Connecting Around Transfer: Multi-Institutional Research on Writing Transfer.” (She also won $5.) Her essay “Multiple Majors, One Writing Class: Discovering Commonalities through Problematization” has been published in Linked Courses for General Education and Integrative Learning: A Guide for Faculty and Administrators (Stylus Press 2013).

Kate Haake published an essay, “Thinking Systematically About What We Do,” in Teaching Creative Writing, edited by Heather Beck and just released by Palgrave Macmillan in its Teaching the New English Series.

Marty Sayles has a book review published in the December 2012 issue of Women’s Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal (Vol. 41, no. 8). The book – Musical Echoes: South African Women Thinking in Jazz by Carol Ann Muller and Sathima Bea Benjamin – examines the role of American and English popular music on South African jazz musicians during the apartheid era.

Undergraduate creative writing student, Olvard Smith, has had a story accepted (his first!) for publication in the online literary journal, The Zodiac Review. Congratulations, Olvard. We will be looking for more from you.

Jackie Stallcup published an essay, “Discomfort and Delight: The Role of Humour in Roald Dahl’s Works for Children” in Roald Dahl, edited by Ann Alston and Catherine Butler and just released by Palgrave Macmillan in its New Casebooks series.

At “Catastrophes: The 2012 International Conference on Romanticism” held this year at Arizona State University from November 8-11, CSUN was well represented by alumni Cesar Soto (now at Notre Dame), Lorie Hamalian, Ranita Chatterjee and her two Sally Casanova Pre-doctoral students Norma Aceves and Corri Ditch. In a panel called “Mary Shelley’s The Last Man I: Sites of Contagion,” Ranita presented “Our Bodies, Our Catastrophes: Biopolitics in Mary Shelley’s The Last Man.” In “Literal, Symbolic, and Imaginary Violence,” Corri presented “Mary Wollstonecraft’s Death and the Effects of Postmortem Vilification on the Proto-Feminist Ideology of the Romantic Period” and in this same panel coincidentally, Cesar presented “The Catastrophic Sublimity of Romantic Serial Killing: De Quincey’s On Murder Considered as One of the Fine Arts.” Finally, in “Psychological Trauma and the Narration of Catastrophe,” Norma presented “Disabled Body Politics: Charlotte Dacre’s Zofloya and the Catastrophes of the Mind.”

Lauren Byler, Fred Field, and Danielle Spratt have all received COH Faculty Fellowships, which provide three units of reassigned time, for Spring 2013. Congratulations, all!

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